The discussion on Bronte's thread on the New Government Housing Initiative has prompted me to wonder how we could resolve the current homeless crisis and also provide some incentive to builder/developers/banks to re-commence house building at an acceptable risk level.
Fr Peter McVerry has recently raised awareness on the unprecedented numbers of homeless people in Ireland (particularly Dublin) and the new factor that many of these people are couples with children with a lack of capacity by Welfare or Charities to provide them with even temporary accomodation. Is is possible that we could in some way resolve this crisis without incurring significant costs that would require either additional funding or reductions in other areas of SW spend?
Statistics from Focus Ireland put the number of homeless in the country at circa 5,000 people. No breakdown of couples or single people. However, for the purposes of this excercise I have taken a breakdown of 1,500 couples and 2,000 single people.
Using these statistics we would need 1,500 additional double/family housing units and 2,000 single units. On the basis of some broad cost research each double unit is set at a cost of 120,000 and single units at 50,000. (this is based on a build price to a private developer and on a modest mix of apartments/townhouses with some element of site costs included. (assumption is that existing government owned available sites will be utilised where possible).
Total cost of providing these units would be 280mln. This would be financed by issue of a 10 year Govmt Bond at existing yield of 2.64%. Upon expiry of the 10 years the Bond would be re-financed by a further 10 year Bond being issued. Annual interest cost would be 7.4 mln. However, using existing rent supplement figures the existing cost of providing rent supplement to 5,000 homeless would be 8.6mln per annum. This is providing that they could find accomodation at the rent supplement level.
I accept that this is a very broad brush overview and there may well be some holes in the proposal that could totally undermine it, but it would appear to have some merit and in addition would provide substantial additional jobs in construction and re-generate confidence in the building sector, with profit provided to developers to re-invest in other projects.
Fr Peter McVerry has recently raised awareness on the unprecedented numbers of homeless people in Ireland (particularly Dublin) and the new factor that many of these people are couples with children with a lack of capacity by Welfare or Charities to provide them with even temporary accomodation. Is is possible that we could in some way resolve this crisis without incurring significant costs that would require either additional funding or reductions in other areas of SW spend?
Statistics from Focus Ireland put the number of homeless in the country at circa 5,000 people. No breakdown of couples or single people. However, for the purposes of this excercise I have taken a breakdown of 1,500 couples and 2,000 single people.
Using these statistics we would need 1,500 additional double/family housing units and 2,000 single units. On the basis of some broad cost research each double unit is set at a cost of 120,000 and single units at 50,000. (this is based on a build price to a private developer and on a modest mix of apartments/townhouses with some element of site costs included. (assumption is that existing government owned available sites will be utilised where possible).
Total cost of providing these units would be 280mln. This would be financed by issue of a 10 year Govmt Bond at existing yield of 2.64%. Upon expiry of the 10 years the Bond would be re-financed by a further 10 year Bond being issued. Annual interest cost would be 7.4 mln. However, using existing rent supplement figures the existing cost of providing rent supplement to 5,000 homeless would be 8.6mln per annum. This is providing that they could find accomodation at the rent supplement level.
I accept that this is a very broad brush overview and there may well be some holes in the proposal that could totally undermine it, but it would appear to have some merit and in addition would provide substantial additional jobs in construction and re-generate confidence in the building sector, with profit provided to developers to re-invest in other projects.